HQPlayer Embedded & Ravenna Issue

[The Computer Audiophile]

On 8/17/2022 at 1:11 PM, Miska said:

 

MAD (Merging Audio Device) is not in use on your Mac, because it is not involved in the playback. IOW, the CoreAudio driver is not being used.

 

 

One issue I spot here is that you have ALSA as clock master and Hapi as clock slave.  They correctly share the clock domain though. You should drag Hapi to the top to have "crown". But otherwise looks fine to me.

 

You may have some input connection - hence ALSA receiver that is not working. ADC or AES input or such.

 

Hi Jussi, do you know what’s to be gained with the hardware as the master of a sample rate zone?

 

Merging says it can be done any way you’d like. Plus, I don’t believe the sample rate master is actually clocking anything, it’s just telling all the devices which sample rate to use. This is of course different from the PTP master which doesn’t have to be sample rate zone master. 

 

 

https://merging.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUBLICDOC/pages/4819516#MergingAudioDevicerecommendedsamplingratesetups.-HardwaredeviceasMastersamplingrate(multiplehardwaredevices)

[Miska]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Jussi, do you know what’s to be gained with the hardware as the master of a sample rate zone?

 

Merging says it can be done any way you’d like. Plus, I don’t believe the sample rate master is actually clocking anything, it’s just telling all the devices which sample rate to use. This is of course different from the PTP master which doesn’t have to be sample rate zone master. 

 

 

https://merging.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUBLICDOC/pages/4819516#MergingAudioDevicerecommendedsamplingratesetups.-HardwaredeviceasMastersamplingrate(multiplehardwaredevices)

 

Based on what Merging guys explained me, I was under impression that the one crown one has master clock and other devices are slaves through PTP + PLL. Since only one RAVENNA device can be master clock and other ones must be slaves.

 

I also understood that NADAC sets itself up as master clock automatically. But the pro gear doesn't do this.

 

From practical point of view, it doesn't make much difference, since Merging devices don't support DSD at multiples of 48k, so the HQPlayer output rate is static anyway.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Based on what Merging guys explained me, I was under impression that the one crown one has master clock and other devices are slaves through PTP + PLL. Since only one RAVENNA device can be master clock and other ones must be slaves.

 

I also understood that NADAC sets itself up as master clock automatically. But the pro gear doesn't do this.

 

From practical point of view, it doesn't make much difference, since Merging devices don't support DSD at multiples of 48k, so the HQPlayer output rate is static anyway.

 

It’s a bit confusing, at least to me :~)

[bodiebill]

9 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It’s a bit confusing, at least to me :~)

 

Also to me. For instance this passage in the Merging link you shared above:

DSD

Many ASIO host do not handle DSD sampling rates, and may even prevent some to start.
Therefore, when Merging Audio Device is set as Master ASIO Host, DSD sampling rates are not accessible.
If you need to run DSD, then please set your ASIO DAW as Master ASIO Host in the Merging Audio Device panel (and press Apply).
Then set the required DSD sampling rate from your ASIO/DAW.

 

I assume similar applies to ALSA. When I set my Hapi as master rather than the ALSA host and set the S/R to 44.1, DSD from HQPE plays well OK. Maybe this just means that the GentooPlayer ASIO host with HQPE does handle DSD S/R's? Upon playing, MAD, Hapi WI and Aneman do show 'DXD/DSD'.

[El Guapo]

My understanding is…

Device on the crown position leads the change of the sample rate of the zone but doesn’t mean the crown must be the master clock (except when Hapi / Horus use the external clock).
 

Master clock (which has a small clock icon) can be anyone of the zone member. For example I have an Anubis and a Hapi, I can put my NAA Mac mini to the crown position and set member Hapi as the master clock. Then every devices in the same zone will follow the Mac mini’s command to change the sample rate while all devices still use the Hapi as master clock to deal the audio data transmission.

 

After playing with the Ravennalised ALSA, MAD and VAD, I personally prefer using VAD (Mac) on crown position. That would kill less brain cells.😆 My $.02

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, El Guapo said:

My understanding is…

Device on the crown position leads the change of the sample rate of the zone but doesn’t mean the crown must be the master clock (except when Hapi / Horus use the external clock).
 

Master clock (which has a small clock icon) can be anyone of the zone member. For example I have an Anubis and a Hapi, I can put my NAA Mac mini to the crown position and set member Hapi as the master clock. Then every devices in the same zone will follow the Mac mini’s command to change the sample rate while all devices still use the Hapi as master clock to deal the audio data transmission.

 

After playing with the Ravennalised ALSA, MAD and VAD, I personally prefer using VAD (Mac) on crown position. That would kill less brain cells.😆 My $.02

 

Thanks, useful info. In Aneman the Hapi is shown with the clock icon. Just theoretically: how would I be able assign the master clock to the ALSA host?

I will play around with both options (Hapi vs GP/ALSA as Master). When set, so far either works fine. Only when I want to switch the Hapi to spdif for video and back to audio, I have to chgange quite a few settings in MAD, Hapi and Aneman, including removing/adding a S/R zone and deleting/renewing the connections in the latter. Learning by doing...

 

Something else: here the external WCK signal is not accepted by the Hapi when set to spdif. It works well with Ravenna.

 

[bodiebill]

On 8/16/2022 at 10:30 PM, Miska said:

Why direct connection?

 

This is some strange myth without any technical basis...

 

Above I mentioned that DSD256 with Sinc-M and ASDM7ECv2 played flawlessly on the Hapi. However lately I had many clicks and dropouts when doing this with HQPE, and that even with DSD128. So I thought I'd try with HQP Desktop under Windows... Same problem alas. So I wondered what had changed since it worked well... Then I thought I'd try the direct connection again between the PC and the Hapi (only possible with Windows). This solved the problem. Flawless playback again.

SO HQPE (for which I have a license, unlike for Desktop 4) is not yet up to the task.

Any advice to make this work with HQPE -- and hence with an indirect connection, i.e. via a switch or router -- would be appreciated.   

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

Above I mentioned that DSD256 with Sinc-M and ASDM7ECv2 played flawlessly on the Hapi. However lately I had many clicks and dropouts when doing this with HQPE, and that even with DSD128. So I thought I'd try with HQP Desktop under Windows... Same problem alas. So I wondered what had changed since it worked well... Then I thought I'd try the direct connection again between the PC and the Hapi (only possible with Windows). This solved the problem. Flawless playback again.

SO HQPE (for which I have a license, unlike for Desktop 4) is not yet up to the task.

Any advice to make this work with HQPE -- and hence with an indirect connection, i.e. via a switch or router -- would be appreciated.   

HQPe is definitely up to the task. It’s likely your switch isn’t up to the task. 

[bodiebill]

23 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

HQPe is definitely up to the task. It’s likely your switch isn’t up to the task. 

 

You are probably right. Any advice for a managed switch that would make this work and costs less than a HQP 4 Desktop license? 🤔

[The Computer Audiophile]

16 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

You are probably right. Any advice for a managed switch that would make this work and costs less than a HQP 4 Desktop license? 🤔

 

Hmmm. No.

 

Which switch are you using now?

[El Guapo]

7 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Any advice for a managed switch that would make this work and costs less than a HQP 4 Desktop license?

I would suggest to get a Cisco CBS350-8T-E-2G (no PoE version). It's on the validated list and cost around $200. Benefit is... it has the configuration file provided by Merging. To configure the switch becomes very easy-- just upload and reboot. I currently own 8P-E-2G (PoE version) and very happy with it.

 

[Miska]

Since I have Hapi and HQPlayer server in different rooms, I have three switches involved in my case, two HPE and one Cisco SG350 series switch. SG350 is one with PoE feeder, since it also powers two HPE/Aruba WiFi AP's.

 

Works fine for both NAA and RAVENNA. Never tried to put RAVENNA over WiFi, but NAA certainly works over WiFi up to 8 channels of DSD256.

 

[bodiebill]

In answer to @The Computer Audiophile's question above:

My current network setup is either Zyxel VMG8825-T50 (stock modem router) --> Afterdark SFP --> 15m fiber --> EtherRegen --> CAT8 --> Delock 62619 --> short CAT6 --> Hapi; or alternatively a direct connection into the Afterdark SFP. etc.

Both SFP input and RJ45 output on the EtherRegen are on the A side of that device. The B side is only 100 mbps and Ravenna requires 1GB. 

 

To be honest, I think maybe I should bite the bullet and also buy HQP 4 Desktop for Windows. I see a number a disadvantages with the ALSA version of Ravenna. In order to get it to work I have to add yet another device (a suitable switch) to the chain. Also it requires the use of two computers -- one with Linux, one with Windows (or macOS) -- and so far this latter setup has given me a headache as I continue to have to redo the settings/connections on MAD and Aneman. And then all the red error messages...
Doing everything under Windows just feels better.

 

It is good that Merging has introduced the Linux ALSA driver, however what is the real use if you are required to also run Windows (or macOS) to make it work?

[Miska]

19 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

My current network setup is either Zyxel VMG8825-T50 (stock modem router) --> Afterdark SFP --> 15m fiber --> EtherRegen --> CAT8 --> Delock 62619 --> short CAT6 --> Hapi; or alternatively a direct connection into the Afterdark SFP. etc.

Both SFP input and RJ45 output on the EtherRegen are on the A side of that device. The B side is only 100 mbps and Ravenna requires 1GB. 

 

Have you tried removing EtherRegen? I see it as most likely source of problems. Especially if you use it's 100 Mbps side.

 

For proper RAVENNA operation you certainly need a 1 Gbps network with functional 802.3x and 802.1p. Also note that SFPs can mess with 802.3x for example.

 

Quote

It is good that Merging has introduced the Linux ALSA driver, however what is the real use if you are required to also run Windows (or macOS) to make it work?

 

For example in my case, it is needed just once and then can be left as-is.

 

[bodiebill]

17 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Have you tried removing EtherRegen? I see it as most likely source of problems. Especially if you use it's 100 Mbps side.

 

Thanks Jussi. I am already using the ER's A side only. With A-B I cannot even reach the Hapi web interface. But I will try later with the ER replaced by another SFP converter.

17 minutes ago, Miska said:

For example in my case, it is needed just once and then can be left as-is.

 

Alas that was not the case here as I had to often redo the settings without probable cause. I also begin to think that it may not be a good idea to use the Hapi for multiple purposes (Ravenna/HQP, video via spdif, SD Transport via AES) as switching is so cumbersome and often requires restarts.

 

The experimenting continues...

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Alas that was not the case here as I had to often redo the settings without probable cause. I also begin to think that it may not be a good idea to use the Hapi for multiple purposes (Ravenna/HQP, video via spdif, SD Transport via AES) as switching is so cumbersome and often requires restarts.

 

It's a pro converter for studios. So I don't think it was ever designed to be used that way. Not sure if NADAC would be simpler in that respect.

 

[El Guapo]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Zyxel VMG8825-T50 (stock modem router) --> Afterdark SFP --> 15m fiber --> EtherRegen --> CAT8 --> Delock 62619 --> short CAT6 --> Hapi

It looks like you mixed the Ravenna network with your home network. 🤔 Suggest to configure a dedicated network for Ravenna (build a VLAN or use independent switch).

[Miska]

44 minutes ago, El Guapo said:

It looks like you mixed the Ravenna network with your home network. 🤔 Suggest to configure a dedicated network for Ravenna (build a VLAN or use independent switch).

 

That is totally unnecessary when you use unicast streams. It works just fine without dedicated network. I don't have any dedicated network for RAVENNA.

 

[El Guapo]

25 minutes ago, Miska said:

It works just fine without dedicated network.

I once used my home network for Ravenna audio. Until one day I copied some DSD albums to my NAS while playing the music and the Ravenna audio streams distorted... really bad. So that's why I decided to get a Cisco CBS350 for Ravenna.😅

[Miska]

3 hours ago, El Guapo said:

I once used my home network for Ravenna audio. Until one day I copied some DSD albums to my NAS while playing the music and the Ravenna audio streams distorted... really bad. So that's why I decided to get a Cisco CBS350 for Ravenna.😅

 

Maybe your home network switch didn't properly manage 802.1p? Or did you use multicast stream? Was the NAS on same connection that you used for music?

 

Let's say you have computer A doing streaming to Hapi through a switch. And then computer B doing file copy to a NAS through the same switch, these two packet streams never meet each other and cannot affect each other because they are between different ports on the switch.

 

Using VLAN still puts the packets on the same connection, since it is purely virtual, just couple of bits different in the ethernet packet header. Only case where VLAN makes difference is when you use multicast stream because it limits the scope of multicast distribution. But if you are sending audio to only one endpoint, there's no point in using multicast streams, but instead unicast streams should be used. If you want to do synchronized multi-room audio with RAVENNA having multiple Hapi or Anubis devices around the house, then multicast over VLAN certainly makes sense. But so far, people have been discussing only having two devices within the sample rate zone.

 

[bodiebill]

6 hours ago, El Guapo said:

It looks like you mixed the Ravenna network with your home network. 🤔 Suggest to configure a dedicated network for Ravenna (build a VLAN or use independent switch).

 

The discussion aside whether a dedicated network is really necessary in a simple setup with only one Merging device and Unicast, would not a direct connection (separate from the home network) be the simplest way to achieve this?

[bodiebill]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

Have you tried removing EtherRegen? I see it as most likely source of problems. Especially if you use it's 100 Mbps side.

 

I replaced the ER respectively the Afterdark SFP module by a MikroTik SFP/RJ45 switch. In both cases there were still dropouts when playing with HQPE and the Hapi on the home network. Also with fiber removed and just a single CAT7 cable there were dropouts. So I do not think my modem-router (alone) is fit for Ravenna.

 

Suppose I would buy a Merging compatible switch (such as the Cisco SB CBS350-8T-E-2G), should configuring and plugging this in the existing modem-router as well as in the Hapi solve the problem? Will the modem-router not remain a bottleneck?

 

Still deliberating between HQPE and HQP Desktop for Windows... I do like the renderer possibility of the HQPE though, so would like to make this work.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Suppose I would buy a Merging compatible switch (such as the Cisco SB CBS350-8T-E-2G), should configuring and plugging this in the existing modem-router as well as in the Hapi solve the problem? Will the modem-router not remain a bottleneck?

 

Do not use switch features of modem/routers, these are almost systematically bad. Instead having a decent unmanaged switch is many times better option. Just connect your modem/router to one port of the switch like everything else.

 

Smart switches like the Cisco in question are fine, only thing to pay attention to is that they really need some effort to configure correctly. So those are not plug-and-play.

 

For HQPlayer NAA and other audio streaming, you should make sure you have 802.3x (Flow Control) and 802.1p/DiffServ (CoS/QoS) enabled. Also 802.3az (EEE, aka Green Ethernet) is useful with it's cable length, transmit power and idle port detection. Earlier, I have posted information about required configurations for HPE and Cisco switches.

 

3 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Still deliberating between HQPE and HQP Desktop for Windows... I do like the renderer possibility of the HQPE though, so would like to make this work.

 

Merging driver on macOS, Linux and Windows should behave largely the same. So for any differences, I would primarily look for any other possible differences.

 

[El Guapo]

20 hours ago, Miska said:

Maybe your home network switch didn't properly manage 802.1p? 

Think so. I configured two QNAP QSW-2104-2S unmanaged switches. Using SFP+ to connect 1st and 2nd tier switch. The 2nd tier one I managed NAS connected to the other 10G SFP+ port thus i9 HQPe server (w/ Ravennalized ALSA), NUC ROCK, MacBook Pro and Anubis occupied the remaining four RJ45 ports.

 

20 hours ago, Miska said:

Or did you use multicast stream?

All unicast streams.

 

20 hours ago, Miska said:

Was the NAS on same connection that you used for music?

At that time my NAS was newly-acquire so no music files in it (that's why I was copying music contents from my another music backup disk thru my MBP). Music source was from NUC ROCK w/ USB storage and sent to HQPe server. If stopped / cancelled copying the files, music playback would go back to normal...🤔

[bodiebill]

14 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Do not use switch features of modem/routers, these are almost systematically bad. Instead having a decent unmanaged switch is many times better option. Just connect your modem/router to one port of the switch like everything else.

 

Smart switches like the Cisco in question are fine, only thing to pay attention to is that they really need some effort to configure correctly. So those are not plug-and-play.

 

For HQPlayer NAA and other audio streaming, you should make sure you have 802.3x (Flow Control) and 802.1p/DiffServ (CoS/QoS) enabled. Also 802.3az (EEE, aka Green Ethernet) is useful with it's cable length, transmit power and idle port detection. Earlier, I have posted information about required configurations for HPE and Cisco switches.

 

Merging driver on macOS, Linux and Windows should behave largely the same. So for any differences, I would primarily look for any other possible differences.

 

 

Thanks Jussi. I did make some (slow) progress. Before buying anything else, I thought to try what I have available: I replaced my Zyxel modem-router by an Asus RT-N66U, upgraded its firmware, defined some QoS rules in favor of Ravenna and turned of the firewall. Trying with HQPE ASDM7 the crackles and dropouts are now much more rare. I just played a 10 min track without any. They are not completely absent though.

 

Here

https://merging.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUBLICDOC/pages/4817447/Network+Switches+for+RAVENNA+-+AES67

I read

RAVENNA/AES67 network should have its own VLAN and not mixed with other network types

So I could consider making a dedicated VLAN in the Asus router?

 

I am now torn between Linux and Windows. Linux has the benefits of HQPE's renderer function and my already available license (no extra cost). Windows has the benefits of a direct connection between the PC and Hapi (which felt good and played flawlessly when I tried it) and less cumbersome (re-)configuration with MAD and Aneman.

 

Work in progress, just sharing my thoughts.